Athletes not fooling anyone with denials (Ingraham column)

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Some in the Yankees' management hope Alex Rodriguez never plays again, so much of the $114 million he's still due can be covered by insurance. Not only is he injured, he's at the center of performance-enhancing drug use allegations.

Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis denies that he ever attempted to purchase Deer Antler Spray to help him recover from an injury.

That's good enough for me.

I knew all along Lewis was innocent of such charges.

Why?

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Well, for starters, Lewis is not a deer.

My guess is Deer Antler Spray is probably used by deer to help them recover from gunshot wounds.

If I was Lewis, my denial at his Super Bowl news conference would have been short and to the point:

"Hey, guys. Come on. Do I look like a deer?"

Alex Rodriguez, meanwhile, was accused by a newspaper report of buying human growth hormone and performance-enhancing drugs from a Miami-area clinic.

Rodriguez denies that he ever did that, and that's good enough for me.

Why?

Because Rodriguez makes way more money than I do, so he must be telling the truth. I mean, it's not like during his career Rodriguez has denied doing steroids, then admitted to doing steroids, then denied doing steroids from the end of the period he was doing the steroids he originally said he wasn't doing, until now, when he's been accused of doing them again.

Well, Ok. So this is exactly like that. But this time I really feel like he's telling the truth.

Why?

Just because.

In addition to Rodriguez, the report by the Miami Times said it has proof of other major league players buying banned substances from that Miami-area clinic. Also mentioned in the report were Gio Gonzalez, Melky Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, and Bartolo Colon.

All of them have either denied the report, or have not responded to it.

That's good enough for me.

Because it's clear if the players don't respond to the charges it's because they know they didn't do it. Their thinking, obviously, goes something like this: "I didn't do it, so I'm not going to respond to these charges. Besides, anyone who is not me is a complete idiot."

Hands please: How many of you would agree with me that most of us out here are complete idiots, who will believe anything professional athletes tell us?

Hmmm. More than I thought.

That's not to say, however, that we are wrong for believing that professional athletes who deny using steroids aren't telling the truth.

I mean, if you can't trust Manny Ramirez, who can you trust?

Ramirez has been suspended twice, the first time for using a female fertility drug, which apparently can be used to mask the use of steroids. Ramirez blamed his positive test result on medication prescribed for him by a doctor to address a health issue.

That's good enough for me, because think about it. Why would any male professional athlete knowingly use a female fertility drug? Do you realize how many games he would miss once he reached his third trimester?

What if he were to go into labor in the middle of an at bat?

It was so obvious Manny was telling the truth on that, I still can't believe he got suspended. Twice.

Let's face it. Professional athletes are, by nature, truth tellers.

Think back to the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, when Shoeless Joe Jackson was coming out of the courthouse, during the trial in which eight White Sox players were accused of throwing the World Series.

A small boy ran up to Jackson and pleaded with him, "Say it ain't so, Joe!"

The kid was begging Jackson to tell a lie, but to his credit Shoeless Joe wouldn't say it wasn't so, although there were reports that some in the crowd heard him mumble, "At least I've never used Deer Antler Spray."

Bottom line: professional athletes have too much to lose by lying to us complete idiots. These athletes are already rich and famous -- and some of them can ride bicycles at incredible speeds.

Like Lance Armstrong, who drew attention to himself by winning the Tour de France SEVEN YEARS IN A ROW. That seemed, you know, a little unnatural. Naturally, charges of performance-enhancing drug-use followed.

Armstrong denied it for years, and I believed him, because he can ride his bike really fast and I don't even HAVE a bike.

Then he went on Oprah and sort of admitted that maybe he did take some extra strong aspirin on occasion, but I'm sure that was just to get everybody to calm down. I mean, come on. Who cares about bike racing?

Professional sports leagues now suspend athletes for drug use, but all that tells me is that the leagues really aren't listening to the heart-felt denials that come from the accused athletes.